You're receiving this email from me because you subscribed for updates or bought something in the OpenFaaS Store.

I'm putting on a one-off special offer for the King's Coronation.

But I'm not a royalist per say - but I did receive an opportunity in my late schooling years from The Prince's Trust.

How I got started with IT

I'd started showing promise with PC and network administration - helping out at the school lab, repairing computers, replacing patch cables - "sysadmin" kind of things. At this age, I couldn't be taken seriously as a programmer so I doubled down on networks and computers.

One day our IT teacher asked three of us to go to a regional competition to test our skills. He drove us a couple of hours away in his car to a large IBM campus and we began - under exam conditions - building a computer, configuring the networking and setting up everything to the specification required.

I won that day's contest and I couldn't believe my luck.

Then, they chose me to go and compete at a national level at the NEC in Birmingham - and I was assigned a personal training who volunteered her time to help me think straight under exam conditions and to get in the game.

On the day I remember being terrified when I saw that the other contestants had got way further ahead than me, one of them had finished and was twiddling his thumbs.

What she said to me has stayed with me - "don't compare yourself, focus on the work you are doing" - she explained - "they may have rushed, made errors, or have been unable to complete all the tasks"

I carried on and won - then as part of a larger team of vocational skills - bricklaying - CAD - electricians - hair-dressers, beauticians, we trained like an Olympic team going to offsites and retreats - clad out in our own identical - branded -suits and casual wear - ready to represent the UK.

And then it was off to Switzerland where we all competed and supported each other over the course of a week.

So I'm grateful to King Charles for investing in young people, and I'd like to do the same through my technical blog posts, conference speaking, contributions, mentoring and eBooks.

Until 8th May, there's 50% off the Premium Edition of my eBooks - which includes all the content and extras, plus updates.

Just use code "princestrust" - and why not get both - or buy a copy and gift it to a friend by entering their email into Gumroad when you check out.

https://store.openfaas.com

Have a great weekend,

Alex

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